2016 – A Music Extravaganza!

 

It’s said that as we age, we stop looking for new sounds to infiltrate the ear canal and just bathe in the nostalgic warmth of what we already enjoy. Apparently I missed the bus that goes to that particular neighborhood in Blandsville…

In years past, I’ve spent a bit of time in January looking back at books that I read over the previous year. However, my book consumption rate last year was goddamn pathetic, so that’s out for 2017. Luckily, I stepped it up big in terms of what I’m listening to.

Now, this has nothing to do with bands I was already into who released new stuff this year. So I won’t be mentioning names like Metallica, Sixx A.M., Adele, David Bowie, A Tribe Called Quest (though I thought long and hard about including them, since it’s their first new material in forever and a day) or Iggy Pop. Okay, I won’t be mentioning them from this point forward. All released really good stuff. But this is about new shit. At least, stuff that’s new to me. Some of them have been around for awhile. Hey, I’m old! It takes me awhile to find things! Be glad that I manage to find pants!

And there was A LOT of new shit in 2016. Thanks to my XM account, I typically ‘find’ about 20-25 new bands a year. This year was like that, only on a lot of steroids. XM led to a lot of them, but so did people. All kinds of people. People who I follow online, friends, acquaintances, whoever. If you have ever mentioned a musical act within earshot of me, and particularly if you’ve previously led me to something cool, there’s a good chance that I’ve listened to them. All it takes is the quickest of throwaway mentions. My ears are whores.

So consider this my attempt both to bring some eyes to my little corner of the Internet, and to also thank many of you for bringing me to some new music by trying to return the favor. There will likely be a few surprises. There is at least one MASSIVE change in opinion. Try not to be one of those sad little fuckers who skims and just looks at band names…read it, you lazy fuck! Enjoy, mock, laugh at me, I don’t give a shit. Oh, and prepare yourselves for power chords. I am a sucker for power chords.

I’ll link to a video for each group in the band name.

LET MORTAL KOMBAT COMMENCE!

Oh, and I also promise that there will be zero ‘joke’ links to Rick Astley. This is a post about good music, and therefore Rick Astley has no place here.

Scenes From the Debauched Mind of a Ne'er-do-well

 

As the new year dawns, it’s time to be a complete and total cliché and take a look back at my own personal 2016. Forget what happened to the world and anything of the like. It’s all about me! Though a lot less arrogant than that sounded. I may be a lot of things, but that level of self obsessed isn’t one of them. Hey, I’m a bit surprised, too!

This isn’t going to be a countdown of specific changes that I’ve made in the past year. I already updated that set of goals a short time ago here. Of course, it didn’t get read much. I like to think it was because I made the ‘brilliant’ choice of posting it before work, meaning all of you folks who might have read it were busy at jobs and stuff. I like to think that. It keeps me from being a sad heap of old tears slowly drying into obscurity. Look, please just go read it now and save us all the awkwardness of me sobbing uncontrollably again. Nobody wants that. No, this is going to be something a bit bigger and a lot less specific. That’s my way of saying that I’m pretty much making this up as I’m typing, and not even I can look into the future, even one of my own creation. Don’t worry, I’m not going to forego editing. This is just going to be a bit of a zig-zagging rollercoaster ride when it comes to subject. Riffing off the cuff is fun and terrifying all at once.

I could very easily fall into the trap of looking at 2016 as entirely bad. There’s been immense upheaval and pain in my family. Too many people close around me don’t know what’s coming next anymore. I’ve spent a lot of time this year angrily screaming out into the void in the hopes that my voice would somehow quell the maelstrom. I’m always one of those people who wants to do something. And when I can’t do something to fix whatever’s gone wrong, I flail and lash about. I can’t heal the wounds of everyone around me. I can’t change my life, or that of anyone around me, simply by wishing it to be so. All that I can do is keep striding forward.  I’ll always do everything that I can for anyone around me, but I’m not a superman capable of bearing the problems of the world. And trying to take everything at once just leads to my feeling crushed underneath the mass of it all. Going it alone doesn’t work. It never did. But I’ll still bellow into the night when the need is there, because sometimes a primal scream is what you need to clear your head and chase the demons off for another night.

Revisiting the Post-Vacation Write-Up With the Long-Ass Title and Promised Life Changes

 

I know that I often go on about my horrific title skills, but that one is a record setter in the field of putrid. The byline for that mess should just be somebody vomiting.

Hi, I’m Troy Mcclure. You may remember me from such posts as A Road Trip, a Mountain, a Hotel, a Coffee Shop and Another Hotel , and my exciting feature film role in Bedtime for Bonzo 2 : Get This Fucking Monkey to Bed!*

Okay okay, so I’m not Troy McClure. But I AM totally the guy who wrote that earlier post that’s linked to up there. The long story short version of that one (FINE, Liam. I’ll put this bit up front this time! You’re welcome.) was me considering aspects of myself that which I felt that needed to change. This is pretty easy to do when you’re on vacation and spending a fair amount of time almost every day hiking through the wilderness and then sitting in nature and just reflecting on things, so I actually came up with a pretty solid list. But what good is coming up with a list of stuff that you want to start doing in a new way if you aren’t going to hold yourself accountable (Though not TOO accountable…oooooo, foreshadowing)? Let’s hop into the wayback machine, take a look at what I said then, and compare that to what I’m actually doing about it three months later.

Hilariously, I actually forgot to include a fair amount of content that was intended to be in there in the first place. What can I say? It wasn’t all reflection all the time. Plenty of opportunity spent on booze, food, and that waitress I spent most of the last weekend with provided ample distraction. I’m going to add in all of that, too (The missing material, not the distractions. Provide your own distractions as you see fit). Plus some BONUS NEW MATERIAL that I’ve figured out since then makes an exciting debut! Hey, I have to toss something fresh in here in a sadly transparent attempt to give you all incentive to actually read this. Think of this as the reprint of a book with the additional chapter or two. I just keep on giving of myself, you lucky, lucky bastards.

Fitness the Cliff Way

 

AKA Physically Wreck Yourself Until You Finally Realize You’re Not 22 Anymore. Then Learn A Few Lessons And Change Things Before Debilitating Yourself Permanently.

That is possibly the worst secondary title ever committed to digital paper.

So, let’s hop into the old time machine once more and head back to yesteryear. We’ve covered a lot of this, so let’s just do a speed run this time : Cliff depressed, Cliff not doing well, Cliff starts freelance writing, Cliff realizes he’s in awful shape, Cliff decides to do something about it. There. All caught up. Imagine that in the form of a montage with some sort of 80’s music with a pulsing beat cranked up in the background to maximize the awesomeness. May I suggest this? Holy shit, nothing says 80’s rock like multiple band members sporting perms.

Like probably everyone else who decides to get their increasingly fat ass up off the chair to do something about it, I began with little idea of what to actually do. And the weird thing is that I don’t really remember how I came up with my initial workout plans at all. I just sort of…did. It was all very basic, with different pushup variations and anything else that didn’t really require a lot of gear.

I might not have specific memories of exactly what I was doing, but I do remember that before long it started to feel like something that I wanted to make part of my new routine. My life at that point was mostly a beaten down me clawing my way out of a veritable Sarlacc Pit of my own misery, so something providing a good feeling was a solid shot in the arm. I started chasing that endorphin rush like a junkie desperately grasping for the next hit to fill his veins with a brief, fleeting feeling of fiery joy. Looking back now, I realize that working out became a bit of a lifeline. I was trying to clamber out of my own unhappy little world, and it was helping me push my way back up and out of the hole. To some degree this is still true. As I spend my time looking for a new job that will open up some opportunities to make big chunks of progress in my life, I can still look at exercise results as evidence of positive progression for myself. Hence why I become a bit of a pissy little bitch when I hurt myself doing something stupid and can’t work out for a couple of weeks. This is something I’ve been working on…I shouldn’t have so much emotional investment in one aspect of my existence. But we’re veering towards future blog post territory here, so let’s get back on the road and rejoin this one.

As I chased down my next moment of bliss, the other benefits of this particular life change started to make themselves known. It didn’t take too long for the weight to start sliding off, since that initial cut is usually pretty rapid once you start seriously moving around. The joy increased as visible results became more readily available for perusal. That was the good part. The bad part was that at the same rate that my motivation went up, so did my desire to see that progress accelerate. It’s like once that aforementioned junkie has developed a tolerance for the dragon he’s chasing and has to start shooting more and more and more. So I kept adding more and more and more to what I was doing. Not only was I trying to clamber up and over a wall, but I was building the wall up higher first. And as time went along and my enjoyment increased, I was adding more gear and more exercise options. So why not add ALL the everything at once?

See, every time I’d learn something new or a variation on something that I already liked doing, I’d just add it to the routine. I don’t mean replace something with it…no, that would make sense. I mean I’d just add it to what was becoming a sizable stack of exercises. It got to the point that I was doing 22+ different exercises per workout, then repeating that insanity in a circuit from Hell. I’d rip off 6-8 kinds of pushups alone. Did I mention the bare minimum warmup of any kind that preceded these marathon sessions? I’d perhaps do a minute of jumping jacks and maybe one other thing for another minute and then it was time to dive in to what ‘really mattered’. Yeah. Pretty far from smart.

Oh, but it gets worse. So much dumber and worse. Not only was I over-exerting myself without letting muscles warm up and stretch out to begin with, but I wasn’t really letting anything rest, either. I’d just jump from one exercise to the next with the only break being whatever amount of time it took for me to physically get from one spot to the next one. I’d hop from a push exercise to a pull exercise and back to a push and so on with no real break. Perhaps I’d get a few extra seconds of reprieve because I was sucking down a couple mouthfuls of water, but that was it.

Once these ridiculous affairs finally reached an end with me barely able to move my limbs any longer, I’d do a bare minimum of stretching and just go about my day. I’d spend perhaps five minutes stretching out with no cool down, so I was still actively sweating once that was finished. Wrap it up! Brilliant! Can’t see how this can go wrong at all!

Ah yes, the mantra of idiots. Seriously, if anyone EVER tells you this load of horseshit, they’re either a masochist or a moron. Or both. Quick aside, but one of my favorite Youtube channels is BroScienceLife. The guy lampoons the meathead gym idiots that everyone has encountered at least once in their life who regularly spew crap like that from their mouths. It amuses me greatly. But this was also how I was ‘thinking’ (and I use that term very loosely). The only smart thing I did was having rest days, but that was it. And I GUESS it was a ‘positive’ that I was working out in a balanced way and destroying all of me equally? I was physically hammering myself into the ground. And then I started working again. Did I taper my workouts down? No. I just stacked on a sometimes physical job, all without increasing my food intake. So now I’d work out, eat, go to work and consume all of an apple over the next 5 hours before coming home again. That sounds GREAT. And this is where I’d like to welcome grim reality up onto the stage!

I was already constantly suffering through aches and pains and muscle strains and not getting the hint. I’d take a few days off, then just hop right back into the maelstrom of madness that my routine was. And then, my left knee decided to flare up…well, to be fair, I decided to set it off by being dumb. I have a bit of tendonitis in my lower left patellar tendon. I can do all kinds of squats and lunges and jumps and cardio and whatever and it’s fine, but side planks equal bad. I don’t know what it is about that position, but it is GUARANTEED to set it off, and then I spend the next few days in a sleeve because every time I’m descending stairs or a ladder it feels like my knee is going to give out. Well, I got my shiny new TRX and decided that it would be totally fine to do TRX side planks, which involves both your feet being stacked one on top of the other in a stirrup. Long story short : not fine. Three weeks in the sleeve, popping ibuprofen 4 times a day as an anti-inflammatory, icing the knee every day when I got home from work until it was finally back to normal.

Lesson learned? Not really, because at the same time that this was going on, my right arm was starting to get cranky. I figured I had strained something, so I’d rest it for a week or so only to crank the whole machine back up again once it was feeling better. It kept happening and I didn’t change anything. And then one day, it stopped getting better.

“Oh good,” you’re thinking, “This is where he had that epiphany.” Um…yeah…

Kept going. I stopped doing any sort of push exercise when that kept triggering it, but I kept right on doing pullups and chinups and whatever else. I already knew when I started writing this that I was going to come off as dumb, but now that I’m actually reading these words…ugh. I think I need a drink.

As you might imagine, things kept getting worse. So I finally just stopped. And the pain didn’t. I sleep on my side with my arm tucked under the pillow, and for awhile I physically couldn’t do that without pain. I went to Kelowna on vacation a couple of summers ago stressed out that I had torn something in my arm. That FINALLY scared some fucking sense in to my head.

What had actually happened was that my biceps tendon flared up and started screaming “DUDE, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?” so loudly that I simply couldn’t ignore it anymore. Months went by and it finally felt better. I could sleep normally again. And I started ever so slowly to begin working out anew, only this time things were very different.

My average workout time really hasn’t changed all that much, but the composition of what I’m doing has been altered drastically. Longer warmups and a whole Hell of a lot more cool down and stretching at the end. Now I mix in a little cardio interval after every exercise I do. I’m still working hard, but those muscle groups get a bit of time to regroup, which also makes things more effective since my next set of reps is likely to be better now that the muscles being worked aren’t already dead from the start. If I do something high intensity one day, I’m going to taper things down the next. Worn out and sore? Time for a break, or something like this, which is just a lot of warmup and stretching and some really light exercise intervals. I do a lot more circuits of half a dozen things a couple of times over, or a few exercises mixed with some high intensity cardio in quick bursts. I’ve also started doing foot/ankle stretch and strength exercises like this a couple of times a week. If your feet are fucked up, you’re fucked up. So actively trying to avoid that becoming reality seems like a good idea to me. And I own a foam roller, though using it a lot more often is something I still need to get on board with. I’ve started, though.

And if I’m hurting a bit, I alter what I’m doing. For example, right now I’m doing a program designed to help boost your pullup/chinup rep counts. It involves a lot of hanging from a pullup bar and lifting, holding or lowering myself. This morning, the middle of my back right between the tops of my shoulder blades was cranky from that program so I changed it up and passed on doing it today. Instead, I hit some upper body endurance exercises with really light weights, then did some back work with my TRX. I’ve also learned to tell if a little muscle tweak means “Okay, we’re still waking up, keep going and just bring it down a notch for a minute” or “Hey dude, STOP. Not cool today.”

I’ve started paying a lot more attention to persistent and repeated physical problems. An example : about a year ago, the plane we work with at work changed from an Airbus to a 757. That meant a downsizing of the freight containers we were able to use, but also that the containers load differently into the plane. I won’t bore you with the details. You’re welcome. Soon after, I started noticing persistent groin and quad pulls in my left leg. I wasn’t working out any differently, so I focused on how I was moving around at work. I was now basically side stepping the one end of the container into the plane, which meant up to 5,000 pounds was being shifted in a side step. That’s a lot of load being borne by a few specific muscle groups. So I changed the way I was moving and haven’t had an issue since. There have been other, smaller changes like that as well. Instead of persisting with some macho ‘grin and bear it’ crap that leads to nothing more than injuries later on, I’m now focused on dealing with problems to avoid them in the first place.

I finally decided to learn a little bit about caloric intake and the like, though I’ve never gotten to the point of calorie counting because that seems miserable and generally shitty. I just try to be a lot smarter about what I eat, and how much, and when. I actually did the basic calculation to figure out my Basal Metabolic Rate, which is how many calories you need to consume in a day when you do absolutely jack shit. Mine is right around 2,000. And I basically never spend an entire day doing absolutely jack shit, so I eat a lot more than that. I also eat a lot more during the day when I’m at work.

Net result of both of those things : more fat loss, since my body isn’t clinging to every ounce with a death grip as I’m no longer starving it for half a day every weekday. And I actually possess muscle tone, which is different and fun. I actually have lats and traps and leg definition and…whatever those muscles are where your shoulder comes down on to your arm. You know, those…hold on a second :

Those! Whatever those are. Anyway, I spent all summer rocking sleeveless t-shirts and tank tops. It felt good actually getting sun all over me (though without any real tan. I am not wired to tan). By the way, if you’re of the mistaken belief that strutting around like a toned motherfucker will bring the ladies around, allow me to set you straight. The only conversations you’ll have are with obsessed Crossfit dudes who want to blather on about their super sets and pull ups. It’s a definite downside.

And hey, it’s not all about being a showy bastard. I’m also a lot stronger. I can shift around a lot more weight at work a lot more easily than I could before. Some of that is technique and learning how to do so more efficiently, but some of it is strength improvement. My overall stamina is better, too…and I’m leaving that sitting there as a softball sex joke for anyone to jump on top of…OH LOOK, THERE’S ANOTHER ONE. You’re welcome.

Getting back to food intake, could I full-on micro-manage the Hell out of my diet and start figuring out EXACTLY how much of everything to eat every hour of every day? Sure. But I’m never going to do that, because I really don’t give that much of a shit about it. That would also suck all of the joy out of actually exercising, and I still do this because I enjoy it. I like pushing myself. I like improving myself. I like the endorphin rush once I’m done. I get enough post-workout energy that my daily coffee consumption has dropped significantly because I don’t really need it as much anymore. This need has also been reduced since I started taking cold showers. On purpose. Yep. It’s good for you for a lot of reasons, and it gives you a nice little bitch slap of wakefulness. Oh, and actually getting enough sleep helps, too.

Long story short : I finally grew a lick of sense, learned some more about what the Hell I was doing, and realized that I’m not a kid who can get away with overdoing things because he’s still a machine awash in testosterone. I know just enough to be dangerous, but no longer dangerous to myself. And that’s pretty sweet.

So How the Hell Did This Happen?

 

Wow, America. Wow. You really did it. You went ahead and handed the reins to a man who can’t be trusted to be in charge of his own Twitter account.

Based on the way that things seem to be leaning, Donald Trump is now the President of the United States. So how in the Hell did this happen?

First off, I guarantee you that piles of people are going to blame 3rd party candidates like Gary Johnson for ‘stealing’ millions of votes from Clinton. The people making those claims are idiots. Every candidate is a legitimate option for voters. Clearly, the two ‘big’ ones weren’t reaching those voters and they went another way. Good for them. Vote for whoever you believe in. Instead of blaming those voters for ‘wasting’ their vote, maybe try harder to actually reach them in the first place.

Really, there is one major guilty party in all of this, and that is…the Democratic Party.

For months it’s been nonstop talk about the Republicans and where do they go from here and how sad it is that this is the best choice they could nominate. And yeah, that is pretty sad. However, let’s look at the flip side. The best candidate that the Democratic Party could come up with was Hilary Clinton, someone they wanted so little to do with eight years ago that they brought up a guy named Obama and he won the nomination. They have so little in the tank that she was their best option. And where do THEY go from here? Who the Hell do they have coming along?

Again, lots of talk about schisms in the Republican Party, but what do you think is going on with the Democrats? A fair number of people in that party didn’t want anything to do with her. They wanted Bernie Sanders. They wanted to go a different way. Think they’ll be content today to just follow the party line that led them here?

The party just assumed that rust belt voters would continue to vote Democrat because that’s how things have always gone. Meanwhile, Trump actually went out there and actively campaigned. And while your local economy is getting driven into the dirt, yeah, you’re probably a little more willing to hold your nose and vote for the guy who’s claiming that he might change things and bring back the manufacturing base that you’ve been hemorrhaging for decades. Is it likely? No. But desperation breeds more desperation.

And this is maybe the most interesting part of all of this. Obama won on a platform of hope and change. Yet this time around, the Democratic platform was essentially ‘more of the same’. That didn’t resonate with people the way that the idea of changing things did. We had a sitting President with an approval rating of between 55%-57% actively campaigning for Clinton in states that he carried handily four years ago, but nobody cared. Because now the hope and change guy was just trying to talk up the establishment. They abandoned the platform that was a proven winner with voters and arrogantly assumed that everyone would just stay on board the D-train because…reasons. And we won’t even really campaign very hard in lots of those states because we’ll just assume that they’re ours again! Yeah, not so much. Arrogance is rarely pretty, and it certainly hasn’t panned out here.

Meanwhile, Trump was basically running some sort of dark and bizarro Obama-esque ‘change’ campaign. It was a Hell of a lot angrier and more repugnant, but he was the change candidate. And desperate people want change because they want to escape where they currently are. They don’t care about the awful shit you say when you promise them a better tomorrow. And popular entertainers kept doing him favors and humanizing him by bringing him in and showing people him actually possessing a sense of humor on occasion…thanks a lot, Lorne Michaels and Jimmy Fallon and others. You guys get to bear a little bit of blame for this fiasco, too.

The vast majority of the population is clearly pissed off and feeling disenfranchised. Facing that, the Democrats plugged their ears and covered their eyes and ran up a cavalcade of establishment political personalities to stump for her. That’s pretty much the absolutely worst thing you can do when people are angry at that very same establishment. And if anyone thinks that there aren’t rumblings of the same going on North of the border, you’re deluding yourselves. And people who are angry are a lot less likely to give a damn about ‘little’ things like personal morality and your platform on social issues. The Democratic campaign was a disaster. This was every bit the poorly run mess that the John Kerry debacle was. How the Hell it didn’t occur to ANYONE to perhaps stomp down on the e-mail scandal early is beyond me. Instead, we’ll just let it linger on and fester. Yeah, that was a winner of a decision. And that’s just the tip of the very big iceberg that the good ship Democrat just run into.

The worst part of all of this is that this is now going to be the tone of elections going forward. Get ready to see a lot more of this in a lot more countries, because it clearly worked. Whatever last shred of political discourse was left gasping for air and clinging to existence has been shot in the head and tossed in an open grave. It’s all going to get a lot angrier from here on in.

I clearly picked the wrong period of my life to try to be more positive…

A Road Trip, a Mountain, A Hotel, A Coffee Shop, and Another Hotel

 

Sounds like a horrible new sitcom starring a resurgent Jamie Kennedy, only on ABC!

What do all of those places actually have in common? They’re all spots where I’ve had opportunities to just sit down and let the ol’ brain pan burble away. You can only sing yourself hoarse to the music for so long during a lengthy drive before you find yourself sitting in silence accompanied by the hum of wheels on the road and your own subconscious spinning away. And once you start hiking and trudging your way through nature and pausing to enjoy a little green serenity (this should totally be the name of a particular strain of weed), those pesky synapses start firing because they just don’t appreciate nature like your eyes do. Your subconscious doesn’t give two shits about the view. It wants to think. And once it latches onto an idea, it clings to it with a death grip.

So, what was the idea? Not too long ago, Monique had mentioned something on Instagram or Facebook or both or something about paying attention to unconscious habits and routines. That's something which has resonated with me before, typically when I realize I'm unconsciously doing something stupid, but then I blow it off. "Oh, I'll get to it. Sometime. Eventually." And then I don't. Seeing it again pushed it back into the forefront of my mind.

We all do things without really considering the why of it. Most of the time, they’re such quick and mundane tasks that they really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. But you might also find that you’re spending an inordinate amount of time or brain power on absolutely pointless bullshit. Maybe all of those claims that you don’t have time to do the things that you would like to be doing are complete crap, because you’re wasting a lot of time on nonsense that doesn’t matter without you even realizing it. Or perhaps you’ve developed some habits that really are negatively affecting your ability to get to where you want or need to be going.

I decided that this time, I wasn't going to just dismiss it for 'another day'. I’d actually go ahead and spend a while really considering what it is that I do with my time. I thought it might be something I do for a few weeks or whatever, but all of those recent opportunities for reflection and honest thought ended up kicking the floodgates open and out poured the realizations. Actually, a lot of my own bad habits are all tied into one big overarching piece of personal stupidity, so the connections between it and many other related problems dragged them all out en masse in a giant heap.

Now, this may have strayed from the beaten path that post was talking about. But I don’t tend to worry too much about particulars put in place by other people if I can expand on something to make it a positive for me moving forward. If it’s something I’m doing without consideration and it’s not good for me, it simply needs to fucking end.

And since I’m a big believer in public sharing meaning perhaps I can’t just keep doing this shit without at least facing some mockery for it, let the list ensue!

2016 AFC Picks

Let us begin on part 2 of the season preview...and my Super Bowl pick, because everyone is all kinds of eager to know who I'm picking. After all, I'm nobody, goddammit!

East

1. New England - This team is a zombie. It just keeps coming. It can't die because it's already dead. The great sorcerer Belichick keeps them undead and running through dark magic and hoodies. You can't survive! Run now, children! Save yourselves!

Actually, they're a deeply flawed team lucky enough to play in a division filled with mouth-breathing prehistoric cavemen incapable of making good football decisions. They won't have Brady for 4 games thanks to his finally being suspended from a scandal filled with douchebags on every side and that JUST WOULDN'T FUCKING END. Again, they have gaping holes all over the place, but nobody says anything because Belichick. 

This team is so bad at developing receivers that they keep overpaying the also-rans from other teams. The trouble is that they keep expecting the next Moss and Welker but keep signing guys who aren't talented. I'm sure that Chris Hogan won't just be another Danny Amendola! Half the defense is in a contract year. Malcolm Butler is the only good cornerback. And Sebastian Vollmer is already out for the year...and this line was so ghastly a year ago that they dragged Dante Scarnecchia out of a nursing home because an old coach can totally replace actually having talent, right?

2. New York Jets - They finally brought back Ryan Fitzxpatrick after an obnoxious summer of the team pretending they didn't need him and him pretending that he had options. It left everyone looking like unlikable toolbags. Considering that nobody had more dropped interceptions a year ago than Fitzpatrick, I'm sure that he won't just turn into an overpaid turnover machine this season. Their left tackle retired, and they replaced him with Ryan Clady. You might have thought Clady retired years ago, but he's just been injured on a consistent and constant basis.

Already starting to be burned by paying Darrelle Revis elite money after he left his prime years behind, the Jets learned nothing. Instead, they spent big on a running back who's even older and has a thousand times more wear on his legs. 

They have a small pile of talented defensive lineman but remain wed to a 3-4 defensive front despite not having any outside linebackers worth a damn. They actually spent a 2nd round pick on Christian Hackenburg, a 'quarterback' who can't make reads and can't accurately throw a pass. This wasn't even that surprising.

3. Buffalo - Rex Ryan is an overrated loudmouth who took a great defense and used his supposed genius to make it average. Now his fatter, dumber and less talented brother is here to help Rex drop that defensive ranking all the way to crap. They have a very good chance of succeeding with this weird plan that makes no sense.

Marcell Dareus has entered rehab and might not play all year. Mario Williams is gone. Jerry Hughes will now actually face blocking attention and quickly remind everyone that he's terrible when anyone is actually available to block him. The pass rush seems nonexistent.

Offensively, Karlos Williams was released after managing to be massively overweight while also struggling with a drug problem. That's amazing. LeSean McCoy is an asshole who can't stay healthy. The #2 receiver job may as well be handed out to a different 'lucky fan' every week. EJ Manuel is somehow still on this roster.

4. Miami - Ryan Tannehill was apparently a pretty promising receiver in college. The problem is that he's the starting quarterback. Great at running, not so good at reading where his receivers will run. And that's too bad because they actually have some good receivers. What they don't have is a running back after inexplicably refusing to keep handing Lamar Miller the ball whenever he'd have success. Now they have Arian Foster. Remember when Foster was a monster running back? That was two healthy legs ago. 

The defense is reliant on an old Cam Wake coming off of an Achilles tear, a fading Mario Williams still giving a damn, and Ndamakong Suh actually playing like he gives a shit while tying up so much cap space that the team can't afford to add any talent anywhere else. They have no defensive backs. Their middle linebacker is a pass rusher playing out of position. The owner is a gloryhound attention whore who keeps selling tiny shares of the franchise to has-been celebrities in a sad attempt to get someone to look at him for 5 seconds. The Everglades need to swamp this entire franchise and have it devoured by mutant gators.

North

1. Pittsburgh - Let's talk about what a hypocritical shit fuck this franchise is. Sure, the Bengals lost their minds and blew up like the angry manchildren they are in that playoff debacle last year against the Steelers. But let's not forget Pittsburgh's meathead coaching staff inexplicably on the field, pulling dreads and shit talking. And before Vontaze Burfict decided to try to kill Antonio Brown, Ryan Shazier attempted to permanently paralyze Gio Bernard but then avoided a penalty because STEELERSARECLASSY.

Then again, this same team came out very publicly in defense of James Harrison years ago when he was accused of beating and threatening his girlfriend. And they did so AFTER he had admitted to everything on the stand. Why? Because, in the words of the owner, he was fighting to try to get his kid baptized and that's a good thing. The Harrison revival tour continues. I'm sure that his amazing comeback at an advanced age is totally natural and not boosted by anything...

The quarterback finally seems to have figured out that passed out doesn't mean "yes", so yay for progress? Le'Veon Bell is yet again suspended because he can't put the bong down, and he's also coming back from a shredded knee. Antonio Brown is awesome, but the rest of the team is far too easy to hate. They keep drafting linebackers in the first round and end up disappointed. I hope that never ends. Fuck this franchise.

I also love the disgusted look of every player when they have to wear those revolting bumble bee throwback uniforms. I hope they go back to those full time.

2. Cincinnati - Was anyone surprised to see this team implode in the playoffs a year ago? Relying on Pacman Jones to remain rational is like counting on a ravenous leopard to not try to eat you. They've drafted cornerbacks in the first round of the draft for the last 23 years and yet still start the man who gifted our culture 'making it rain'. Vontaze Burfict fell in the draft because he's a bundle of rage, and now he's suspended for being a bundle of rage. Nobody but the Bengals is surprised.

AJ Green is one of the best receivers in the game, and Tyler Eifert looks like the real deal. The problem is everywhere else. Secondary receivers are all question marks. Jeremy Hill would be a tremendous running back if you don't mind a guy who secures the ball like his hands have been permanently slathered in rendered fat. Bernard might be ready to go if he can remember who he is after Shazier tried to knock his brain out of his skull.

Somehow, Marvin Lewis remains in charge of this impending disaster. It's like coaching this team is his right by blood and none can take it from him. Of course, when the alternative is any other schmuck hired by Mike Brown, Lewis might be the lesser of two evils.

3. Baltimore - Ladies and gentlemen, the Ravens remain the most easily detestable football team in existence! Never before has a roster embraced conspiracy theories about the league being out to get them like the Ravens have many times in the past. Ray Rice knocked his girlfriend unconscious and the entire team and the fans moaned about his suspension. Terrell Suggs has done much worse, but video doesn't exist of his grabbing his girlfriend by the hair through the driver's side window of his car and then stepping on the gas, so who cares right? He also looks like Sloth from the Goonies.

Let's take a look at the receiving corps : Steve Smith is ancient and coming back from a torn Achilles. Breshad Perriman has yet to play a snap and is coming back from knee surgery. Mike Wallace failed his physical, and fails to run any pass route that isn't a fly. They released and re-signed their sub 200 pound 30 year old runner within the same week even though he's had one burst of success and that happened two years ago. That's also when they had a pretty good offensive line, and the whole left side of that line is now gone. And Joe Flacco is the most overpaid unibrow in the history of sports. Dude looks positively cro magnon. He might actually be the missing link.

4. Cleveland - I don't even know what to say here. Mocking the Browns just feels cruel. Life has already done enough damage. Do I really need to pile on?

The owner was convicted of massive fraud, much like this team continues to commit fraud every time they charge fans money to watch 'competitive football'. At quarterback is an exciting choice of two different guys trying to return to a brief spurt of glory that happened years ago. The best receiver hasn't played football for approximately 73 million bong hits. 

They went into the offseason talking about keeping their young core free agents, then watched all of them leave after they jerked one of them around with stupid contract tactics when they had no leverage. The only people who believe in Joe Haden's greatness are Joe and possibly his mom. There is no hope. There is nothing to build on. The Cleveland Browns are a wasteland where nothing can grow.

South

1. Jacksonville - I can't actually believe that I'm typing this, but here it is. When you spend as much money as the Jags have this offseason, you damn well better win something. Jacksonville spent money with more reckless abandon than your average Kardashian.

They actually seem to have drafted an impressive troupe of receivers. Now if Blake Bortles can start figuring out that he should try to limit his completions to the guys wearing the same uniform that he has on, things should go well. And they handed a lucrative deal to runner Chris Ivory, because pure power backs who initiate contact always have long careers and earn every cent of those deals. The shiny new left tackle blew his knee out last year, but even if he was still hobbling on one leg would represent an impressive upgrade from top draft bust Luke Joeckel. 

Defensively, the Jags continue their recent run of either drafting guys recovering from knee injuries or having them blow an ACL seemingly as soon as the pick is in. Prince Amukamara was picked up on a one year deal to confuse people who think he's a member of Nigerian royalty here to deliver their promised billions in treasury dollars.

2. Houston - Oh, Texans. Finally realizing what everyone else knew...Brian Hoyer isn't a starter and Ryan Mallett has a future only as a neighborhood meth dealer...Houston went big to get Brock Osweiler. Like, crazy big. They bid against themselves like the Redskins used to do and handed 37 million guaranteed to a man whose best trait as a quarterback thus far is being tall.

Looking for a bookend for the awesome DeAndre Hopkins, they drafted a man who drew comparisons to Ted Ginn. That's like deciding that the answer to your need for a smart financial plan is hiring someone who has never seen money before.

Of course, JJ Watt is still here. He had quite the meat-head offseason. While Houston authorities were urging people to stay home during flooding this summer to avoid hindering emergency rescue efforts, there was JJ sharing photos of himself arriving at the team facility because he doesn't take a day off. He also had to have a second back surgery earlier this summer. I'm sure the issues remaining from the first one had nothing to do with his performing high stack box jumps just weeks after it was performed. Truly a fucking scholar. In the time it has taken you to read this, Brian Cushing has likely had three different joints explode.

3. Indianapolis - Hey everyone, the Colts actually spent resources on offensive linemen! They decided that putting blocking in place might be a better plan for keeping Andrew Luck on the field than just relying on his neanderthal toughness. Hallelujah, tis truly a miracle.

Of course, their only real rushing threat is still Frank Gore. Football's own version of Methuselah is hoping to put up a solid campaign for the 29th consecutive year. Frank Gore is some sort of Terminator sent back in time to  consistently put up solid, not spectacular, numbers. The receiving corps comprises a wide array of fast midgets, and Dwayne Allen is always ready to collapse from injury.

Defensively, they still have a great corner in Vontae Davis and absolutely nobody else who can cover. The linebackers remain mediocre. The pass rush is still entirely dependent on a 35 year old returning from a ruptured Achilles. Chuck Pagano is still here to call gimmick plays and have them run by players who haven't been told exactly what to do. And the GM looks like one of the 'rich kid bad guy'  characters from a late 80's ski movie. They both kept their jobs because the owner is a pill popping drunk. The motto of this franchise : One step forward, three hundred steps in place without moving in any direction at all.

4. Tennessee - The past few years, my loyalty has shifted from the Jags back to this team. The team that stomped all over my heart in the early 90's as the annually doomed Houston Oilers. The team that tried desperately to remove any excitement from Steve McNair's game by trapping him in the most obnoxiously boring offense ever created. The team that gave the NFL the Dullmaster himself, Jeff Fisher.

And what's not to love? They have a promising young quarterback in Marcus Mariota. They have a decent young line in front of him, and Kendall Wright has had success catching passes in previous seasons. Jurrell Casey might be the most underrated defensive lineman in football. The pass rush is decent.

Every single 2nd round pick from the previous 3 drafts is either released or traded for table scraps because they were fucking horrible. The team doubled down on plodding power runners because they employ Mike Mularkey as a head coach, and he thinks that something called 'Exotic Smashmouth' will work in 2016. The pass rush is entirely dependent on two players whose knees are held together by packing tape and hope. The average age of the coaches on this team is 93, and most of them don't seem to realize that the forward pass is actually a legal play.

Why do I hate myself?

West

1. Oakland - Someone get Darth Raider on the phone because his team of lovable outcasts is actually...good? And just in time for the franchise to attempt to move to any city that might fill the stands with people who don't seem to collect arrest warrants like they're in a competition. If you have a stadium, Mark Davis will totally fly to your city and terrify your children by making public appearances.

Derek Carr seems to have inherited all of the actual talent that his older brother had beaten out of him in the early days of the Texans franchise. Amari Cooper offers a legitimate franchise-type receiver for Carr to rely on. Michael Crabtree is here to drop passes in the most crucial of situations. Rumors of tight ends actually living on the roster have yet to be proven.

The offensive line looks potentially dominant, aside from the possibility of still starting Donald Penn in a league that isn't for senior citizens. Khalil Mack has already sacked your favorite team's quarterback 4 times and the season hasn't even started yet. And Sean Smith will try to distract you from the collection of draft flops and awful signings who fill the rest of the secondary.

2. Denver - I realize that winning a Super Bowl on the shoulders of a mummified Peyton Manning and professional tall guy Brock Osweiler can make a team cocky. But, Trevor Siemien? Really? Are the Broncos just trying to lose now? Are John Elway's front teeth now running the front office here? Oh, but he prepares as well as Manning did. So he wakes up at 5 in the morning, watches Matlock, has a nap, enjoys some Metamucil, forgets where he left his cane, and wonders aloud why his great grandchildren don't visit?

CJ Anderson is yet again being anointed a great back after managing to string together about 7 decent games in a row. I'm sure that this time he won't quickly balloon up like diners at an All You Can Eat buffet, especially not after signing an insanely lucrative deal. Demaryius Thomas seemingly forgot how to catch after his mom got out of prison (that isn't even a joke...that's just a statement of fact). They did manage to convince Russell Okung that signing for no guaranteed money is a good idea. Of course, he seems to have convinced Denver that they'll get more than 3 games out of him before his back once again falls apart.

The defense looks spectacular, Aqib Talib's firearms safety habits aside.

3. Kansas City - The starting running back isn't healthy, but every guy who took hand-offs in this offense spent the entire season racking up big yards, so it hardly matters. Dick Cheney would be a weekly hundred yard threat playing running back for the Chiefs. Jeremy Maclin and Travis Kelce remain a dangerous receiving duo. Jason Avant remains the disappointing third member if the starting corps because KC seems to have forgotten to try to improve. 

They spent ginormous money ensuring that first pick disappointment Luke Fisher can continue to not live up to expectations as the starting left tackle. That, combined with inexplicably re-signing all of their old linebackers, meant that no money was left to extend Eric Berry long term. Keeping a flop and some dudes right on the precipice of losing their effectiveness makes more sense than  a long term deal with probably the best strong safety in the sport, right? Every corner being counted on to replace Sean Smith failed when given chances last year. The team's best pass rusher might play this year sometime thanks to offseason injury.

Don't worry, though...Andy Reid is still here to look bewildered and astound with his horrible clock management skills. The next time that Reid calls a sensible timeout will be the first.

4. San Diego - Ladies and gentlemen, your San Diego But Really Want to be Los Angeles Chargers! Oh how they tried to move. Now they're all in on staying put...unless they can move, though every other owner in the league seems as bored of their antics as the few remaining fans do.

Professional douchebag Philip Rivers is still here. They added pure deep threat Travis Benjamin, which makes sense since they now throw short to mid range passes and let the receivers  make yards after the catch...things that he doesn't do well. Melvin Gordon will be the running back until he's hurt again, which is probably happening right about now. It doesn't matter when you read this, odds are even that Melvin Gordon is injured. It's as inevitable as the day-night cycle. King Dunlap is still the starting left tackle, which is pretty much the football equivalent of waving a white flag. One of the 37 centers who played last year will start this one, or they'll sew them all together like some pigskin human centipede that might be more than the sum if its parts and manage to stay healthy.

Defensively...actually, they don't do defense. This team starts a pair of corners under 5 foot 10. These oompah loompahs are no longer backed up by Eric Weddle, since the team spent all of last season weirdly ostracizing their only good defender. Corey Liuget is paid like a great defender while totally living up to being average.

Super Bowl Pick - Honestly? I really don't know. I suppose Arizona makes the most sense on paper. But for the first time in my life, I WANT New England to win. I want Roger Goodell to be stuck handing the trophy to that team. I want him to have to pretend to be happy while awarding Tom Brady the MVP. Fuck Roger Goodell.